


pressure, pressure, pressure

by 8sword



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 9x13, 9x13 coda, Cain!Dean, Episode: s09e13 The Purge, Gen, hellatus h/c olympics, hoodietime olympics, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:04:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1235971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8sword/pseuds/8sword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He's fighting very hard. But you need to have realistic expectations."</p>
            </blockquote>





	pressure, pressure, pressure

**Author's Note:**

> I cheated and tried to do something for all seven of the hoodietime events. Oops.
> 
> Lines from John Winchester's Journal, "Southern Comfort" (8.06), "Asylum" (1.10), "Faith" (1.12), "In My Time of Dying" (2.01), and pretty much all the recent Season 9 episodes. Unbeta'd.

**[1] first aid**

_What are the three P's of wound care? Pressure, pressure, pressure!_ The chirpy voice of the first-aid trainer whose classes they had to sit through to work on the construction site. Dean can remember it, can remember sitting there on the bench with his thighs crammed against a skinny guy's on his left, a sweaty big one's on his right. Remembers trying to breathe. Pressure was all he seemed to be made of then, pushing in on him from the outside, pushing out of him from the inside; he was thin as the soap film of a bubble, and he wanted nothing more than to pop. Become a bitter-slippery taste on someone else's mouth like the bubbles he used to blow for Sammy when he still fit in a high chair and all it took for him to smile was Dean blowing ten-cent bubbles for him to wave his hands through. He made such funny faces when they popped on his eyelids, his nose, blinking and opening his mouth like a guppy, and Dean laughed until his insides hurt, until the front door squeaked and Dad's heavy boots came inside.

 

**[2] hugs and cuddling**

_Mooom!_ The way he'd pulled away from his mom that first day of pre-K, ducked from under her arm when she leaned in to give him a goodbye kiss. He was too big for goodbye kisses, but he'd settled for a goodbye hug, stoically: let her wrap an arm around his shoulders and squeeze. Then he raced to the kids already playing with dinosaurs on the circle mat, like if he ran fast enough he could escape the little kid he'd be made fun of for being if anyone saw him needing a goodbye kiss from his mom.

That night, though. When he was limp and exhausted from telling his parents about being line leader and having a seat by the playground window and beating Cameron Burch in their race across the monkey bars, he let his mom pick him up. Let his head fall into her neck and didn't mumble much more than a tired "Moooom" when she nuzzled her nose into his hair. Forgot to let go of her neck when she laid him down in his bed.

Clung to her, for just a while.

 

**[3] bed sharing**

_Every morning when I wake up, Dean is inside the crib, arms wrapped around baby Sam. Like he’s trying to protect him from whatever is out there in the night._

But in Housatonic, Dad left them with a motel maid, and Dean stood on his tiptoes next to Sammy's crib playing silent peekaboo. Listening to her talk on the phone between the beds about someone's baby boy dying in his mother's bed and _they think it's because she rolled over onto him while she was sleeping. He_ suffocated-- _isn't that terrible?_

He never slept in Sammy's crib again.

 

**[4] emotional support**

_God, I was so damn stupid._

_(You were stupid for the right reasons.)_

_Yeah, like that matters._

_(It does.)_

_(Dean, sometimes that's all that matters.)_

 

**[5] manhandling**

When they had lice, it was Pastor Jim who came to pick them up from school.

Sam was crying, angry and ashamed as the nurse's cold fingers picked through his hair. Dean was pale and quiet in the corner, holding both their backpacks. Guts getting tighter and tighter with every call the nurse made to Dad's phone that didn't get picked up.

Pastor Jim took them to the drugstore. Left them in his car while he went inside and came back out with a polystyrene bag with two white bottles of Nix and some shower caps and a few dollar combs, the long thin ones that hurt when they dragged across your scalp. Dean sat in the backseat while they waited, looking at Sam so he wouldn't meet the eyes of people walking past the car window.

Sam was sniffling. Sam was confused. Sam said _Jeffrey Bentham said if we had a mom we wouldn't be dirty and we wouldn't'a got lice._

Dad came back that night. Sweaty and tired and blinking once, twice, when he saw them sitting on the motel beds in their pink and green floral shower caps, watching _MacGyver_.

He wasn't gentle when it came to combing nits out of their hair. Had to manhandle Sam into the chair for it, 'cause he wailed that Daddy didn't do it gentle, _you're hurting me_ , and Dean turned the plastic comb over in his hands and wished Pastor Jim hadn't had to leave.

Eventually Dad got sick of Sam crying. Stormed out of the room, angry, keys jangling in his hand. Sam sniffled. Dean pushed Sam's chair over to the bathroom sink with its ugly white light and started to comb.

 

(When Dad came back, he had an electric razor. He shaved them both bald, and Sam didn't stop crying for days.)

 

**[6] worrying (and/or mother-henning)**

                "You don't look so good, brother."

                "Yeah, well, you're no Heidi Klum yourself." He slid the machete into its holster.

                Benny grinning. "What say after this we head back to the cafe and I fry you up a po'boy?"

                He almost smiled back. Didn't have quite enough skin to make the stretch. It was drawn too taut over _you and I both know you didn't need that penny to say those things._ Over the memory of rock salt buried in his chest and guilt burning in his gut and _it's like I couldn't control it. But I didn't mean it, any of it._

                Benny's hand settled on the scruff of his neck. Squeezed once, twice. Gentle.

                He swallowed. Tried not to let his shoulders slump.

                "Crawfish," Benny said. "I got crawfish and hot sausage and soft shell crab. Anythin' you want."

                "French fries."

                "Wha's that?"

                Dean cleared his throat. Rolled his shoulders. "French fries. You make 'em with those?"

                "Brother--" Benny shook him by the scruff one last time. "What part of "anythin' you want" not make sense to you?"

 

**[7] ER triathlon**

 

                _"His heart...it's damaged."_

                ("I was messed up, man. Kevin was dead, and I...I don't know what I was.")

 

[ _r e a d y_  ]

 

                _"He's fighting very hard. But you need to have realistic expectations."_

                ("If Sam does eject me, he will die.")

 

[ _s e t_ ]

 

                _"The coma is the result of the body doing everything in its limited power to protect itself from further harm."_

                ("I can give you the Mark, Dean, if it's what you truly want.")

 

 

 

 

 

 

  [ _g o_  ]

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
